Over the past several years, much attention has been drawn to a possible energy crisis and global warming issues. Power generation has been attributed to global warming, especially when burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. There have been many attempts to harvest renewable energy to decrease pollution and reliance on fossil fuels. For example, there has been a significant increase in solar technologies and wind harvesting technologies.
There have been attempts to combine the harnessing of wind and solar power in one device. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,075,564 and 5,254,876, both to Hickey disclose a combined solar and wind powered generator. The combination solar and wind powered generator includes a wind generator including a plurality of wind vanes that are responsive to air flow currents and a plurality of light sensitive cells carried by the wind vanes adapted for transforming light energy to electrical energy.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,045,701 to Kashyap discloses a solar paneled windmill having aerodynamic fan blades provided with solar panels. The fan blades are connected to an axel/shaft, which is connected to a windmill power generator to produce electricity responsive to rotation of the fan blades. The assembly of the Kashya; '701 device includes solar panels covering a substantial portion thereof. The device also includes an electro-mechanical mechanism for converting kinetic energy from the rotation of the blades and solar energy collected by the solar panels into electrical energy.
The devices disclosed above are directed to large applications. In other words, the devices disclosed above can be rather large in size, and are generally provided by structures that are to be constructed on real property. Accordingly, implementation of such devices can be quite expensive. There exists a need for an environmental power generation device having a size suitable for several different uses.